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Kesel and Grummett resurrect Section Zero as a webcomic

SECTION ZERO ia a comic Tom Grummett and I co-created in 2000 as part of Image’s Gorilla Comics imprint, along with some other titles by people you may have heard of: Busiek and Immonen’s Shockrockets, Waid and Kitson’s Empire, Perez’s Crimson Plague, and Dezago and Wieringo’s Tellos. It was my first creator-owned comic and, I gotta tell you, I had the time of my life. But then life took an unexpected turn (I got divorced) and in the middle of its first six-issue arc, SECTION ZERO went on indefinite hiatus.

Tom and I always wanted to get back to Zero and finish what we started but first, as Tom has said, “the stars had to come into the proper alignment.” Cut to late 2011. I’ve started this site, and wonder what I’ll do after the first Johnny Zombie story ends. Guess which two words I think of instantly.

Of course, There Is No Section Zero… without me and Tom. Got to admit, I was worried. A lot of time had passed. We hadn’t spoken in a while. Tom was busy drawing Avengers Academy and Hulk and comics with “X” in the title. Maybe he didn’t have the time or interest any more.

A waste of good worrying. You know the friends you may not see for years at a stretch, but the minute you’re back together it’s as if no time has passed? That’s how it is with Tom. He didn’t say “yes”— he said “Hell yes!” (Except more Canadian.)

So here’s what we’re gonna do: Tom and I are working on new SECTION ZERO material now, squeezing it in around our day jobs. At the same time we’ll be posting all the previously published storyline— starting with today’s 5-Page Prologue, followed by 3 pages every Thursday. By the time all that’s posted, we’ll have a ton of new stuff ready. If you haven’t read these comics before, this is your chance. If you’ve already read them you’ll still want to check in because A) Richard Starkings, First Tiger at Comicraft Comicraft, has insanely and wonderfully insisted on “freshening” the lettering for the book, so the pages have a slightly different look to them, and B) since re-lettering was being done anyway, I’m tweaking the script here and there. The changes aren’t major, just important. For instance: the Prologue originally ended with Kyoti musing about the upcoming 2000 US Presidential election. Considering how that election played out, I really wanted to make his comment a bit more pointed. Things like that.

There’s a lot more to say about SECTION ZERO— both how we got here (over a few mountainous speed bumps) and where we’re going— and we’ll get into all that right here, starting Thursday.